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miscellany vol. 16

everyday, we take the girls to the park and run and jump and slide and stroll. Our hair smells like the outdoors. It is a lovely time in the south.

In our prayers:

we’ve had an ongoing situation with a family member that i alternate between feeling angry and sad about. i’m beginning to think that it might be my sisters and my place to say something; they’ll wait for me to make the move, but i’m afraid to. that fear is beginning to be outweighed by the fear that things will culminate, soon, to a point where we either must say something or never get the chance to say anything. so i am praying for bravery and the right words. and for this person too, always.

In the kitchen:zu and I have been baking. This week we made homemade scones! I had never made homemade scones before—they seemed too difficult. Bryan ate five. last week we made cookie-brownies, but they made me terribly ill from having too much butter in them (first allergic to olive oil, now dairy! June, what did you do to me?). the week before, we made heart-shaped valentine’s cookies. zu loves to help me cook, though it does make a bit of a mess. She is firstmost good at stirring; secondmost, pouring, and thirdmost, taste-testing.

In the notebook:I’m trying to get back on a writing schedule—some nights it takes all my willpower to sit down and grade another daily-quota of freshmen comp papers rather than pulling out my notebook and a few good volumes of poetry. Sundays and Wednesdays are my “writing days” (at least, these are the days I write on my agenda “write!”); lately I’ve been so hungry for writing time that I draft a poem each time I have it. I’ve decided on what I want to write my next book on, so the excitement of that has afforded some inspiration as well.

dance party

The little one:Zu has very much been into dress-up and pretending to be characters lately. Her favorites are Tinkerbell and Goldilocks, but sometimes she is a ladybug too. My mom says that of all the smart things she does, this is the smartest.

She has also decided that she likes wearing headbands and having her hair in pigtails, and that many of the outfits we put on her regularly are “NO GOOD”. In fact, when we get her dressed in the morning, we are often met with her declaration of “that’s no good.” So we’ve taken up the two option method, and she has to pick from just those two. It does sometimes result in tears, but it makes things quicker.

Zu quotes of the week:“Where will Zuzu-Kitty peepee? In this cup? In June’s bottle?” (Playing with her Hello Kitty doll) “Mommy, I think my baby wants to crawl. I think she wants you to put her down and read to me.” (while I was holding June—“zu’s baby”)

mommy and da-doo

The littlest:June is 8 months old! She is hitting milestone after milestone—crawling at the beginning of the month, pulling up to standing now. I think she will walk early, like Zu did.

She’s started using her pinchy fingers to feed herself puffs and yogurt bites and sometimes little bits of mushy table food—no teeth yet, so table food is limited.

I’m looking forward to june being able to walk—she so badly wants to join zu in running around the house that she just about jumps out of my arms!

I know what you mean about walking. It seems like most people think walking is a scary milestone because they're “mobile,” but the way I've always looked at it is, they're mobile with crawling ANYWAY…walking just means I can set them down without making them sit on a dirty floor some random place. I used to love making homemade scones…I need to come up with a good gluten-free version soon! I think if I had to pick three foods to eat forever, it might be coffee, scones, and pizza…

Oh, and I didn't realize you were allergic to olive oil! Oh my goodness! I'm so sorry to hear that. :( You should try cooking with coconut oil if olive oil and butter are troublesome. I use it for cooking all the time. It does give a slight coconutty flavor if you buy the extra virgin coconut oil, but if you just buy plain coconut oil, there's no flavor.

i wasn't always, its developed over the past year =( i'm also having trouble eating dairy stuff too, which is super annoying because i love butter. i need to try coconut oil, i've heard so much good stuff about it!

That is so weird about the olive oil and dairy suddenly giving you trouble! Bummer. And I don't know if you just published this or not, but it just today popped up in my feedly, so sorry if I'm really late to this news. :)